https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3v5n/american-phone-companies-are-literally-letting-their-networks-fall-apart

Once as important as the American railroad and electrical grid, American phone companies aren’t quite what they used to be. With the use of copper-based landlines having plummeted the last few years, many of the nation’s phone companies have understandably attempted to shift their business models toward new, more profitable sectors like video advertising.

The problem: many of their aging fixed-line networks were not only built on the backs of billions in taxpayer subsidies, they’re very much still in use—and for many, slow, expensive DSL is the only broadband available. But with no local competition and local and federal oversight eroded by lobbying—many of these companies have simply stopped caring.